On 23 October 2026, Visa and etisalat money — the fintech arm of e& (Etisalat) — publicly announced a partnership to expand cross-border transfers from the UAE. Under the deal, etisalat money will plug Visa Direct into its app and roll out four new transfer options. The agreement was signed at Visa’s regional headquarters in Dubai.
What the etisalat money app will add
The partners outlined four options to sit alongside etisalat money’s existing transfer service. Visa Direct to Card sends funds straight to the recipient’s card using the card number, typically in minutes. Visa+ links payment apps into one network — a sender uses the recipient’s phone number and the system routes to the linked account or card. The third option is a personal-to-business transfer: funds move from a personal account to a business account held abroad, useful for small-business international payments. The fourth is classic SWIFT as the universal rail for crediting bank accounts via BIC/IBAN. The new options complement etisalat money’s current remittance service, which the company says reaches more than 150 countries through bank accounts, digital wallets and cash pickup.
Where you can send money at launch
According to the public announcement, the new options go live for transfers to India, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and China, with digital wallets supported in several markets. These are the UAE’s key remittance corridors: Central Bank data consistently shows expats from South Asia, Egypt and the Philippines accounting for most personal outbound transfers. Adding Visa card and phone-number rails is expected to cut settlement time versus classic bank transfers, which on the same corridors can take one to three business days.
What the sides said
Melike Kara Tanrikulu, Chief Executive Officer of etisalat money, said the partnership is about helping both individuals and businesses stay connected across borders through payments. Fadi Moukaddem, Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager at Visa for the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, said the joint service will give customers more choice in how they send and receive money abroad. The deal fits into a broader payments toolkit Visa is building across the Gulf, from the UAE national payments infrastructure to cross-border services for banks and fintechs.
What it means for UAE residents and businesses
For expat residents, the main value is speed and more rails in one app: card payout is handy when the recipient already holds a Visa card; Visa+ works when the recipient has a wallet tied to a phone number; SWIFT remains the backbone for larger amounts that must land in a bank account. For UAE small businesses, the personal-to-business option is the stand-out feature: it reduces friction when paying overseas suppliers or contractors while the company is still formalising its international payment setup. As operations scale, the natural next step is a full corporate bank account in the UAE — with a dedicated IBAN and access to the bank’s corporate products.
Context: competition in UAE remittances
The UAE outbound-transfer market has long been served by large exchange houses — Al Ansari Exchange, LuLu Exchange, UAE Exchange — and bank apps. In recent years fintechs have moved in: Emirates NBD, Mashreq Neo, Wio, and now etisalat money, each pushing a digital-first UX and faster rails. Plugging etisalat money into Visa Direct raises competitive pressure on classic providers: at equal fees, the operator wins that offers the fastest settlement and the widest set of options in one app. For the market, this is another step towards transfers that feel invisible to the user — the sender picks the rail by what suits the recipient, not by transaction type.
